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In fact, archaeology is to study the whole life itself, because life is not an emergency, but a constant at the intersection of the past and the future. This is the Nineveh constant.
Nineveh, located in Mesopotamia, Central Asia, has always been regarded by archaeologists as a "rich mining area" for cultural relics. Nineveh was the capital of the ancient Assyrian Empire. From the end of 10 BC, Assyria established a slave empire across West Asia and North Africa after more than two centuries of continuous wars. Under his own rule, Nineveh became the first empire in the Iron Age. Nineveh is the capital where the prophet preached for the first time in the Bible. Its archaeological achievements are amazing. It was the French doctor and entomologist Berta who discovered Nineveh and proved the authenticity of the historical materials in the Bible for the first time. The details are as follows:/kloc-In the 9th century, Europeans and Americans became more and more interested in the distant past. Mesopotamia between the two river basins drives Europeans and Americans crazy with a special temptation. Mesopotamia (in today's Iraq), bounded by the Tigris River and the Euphrates River, is a famous hometown of ancient civilization, which has been mentioned in the works of Greek historians and the Old Testament. The stories of the sophisticated and decadent Babylonians and the fierce and bellicose Assyrians fascinated Europeans. Although there is only one mound left in ancient Babylon, the exact location is unknown. But where are other ancient cities such as Nineveh? This extraordinary city was once described in the Bible as the capital of King sinatra who fought against Israeli tribes and Jewish tribes, but where can it be found in Mesopotamia?
Mesopotamia has always belonged to the Ottoman Empire since16th century. However, due to the great negligence of the monarch of Constantinople (today's Istanbul), it actually became a dead corner full of evil in the empire. A few foreigners who come here occasionally find themselves in deep trouble and are disturbed by various kinds. Here bandits rob people, chiefs are aggressive, local officials take bribes and officials are corrupt; The desert is hot, and lions feed everywhere; Infectious diseases such as cholera and dysentery are prevalent everywhere; Mesopotamia is full of crises, and traveling there is simply an adventure. However, there are still some bold and curious people who venture to explore this historic resort.
One of the earliest explorers was Italian Pito Della Valle, who entered Mesopotamia in 16 16. Waller returned to Europe safely and brought back many souvenirs from the Babylonian ruins, including new writing samples that Europeans saw for the first time. This kind of writing is cuneiform, carved on pottery, and later called cuneiform.
1756, the king of Denmark sent a six-member scientific expedition to the Middle East, five of whom died of sudden illness. Only Kashden Nieber 1 managed to reach Bosepolis (in present-day Iran), the capital of ancient Persians with a history of 2,000 years. When he returned to Europe, he brought back many cuneiform inscriptions found there, which were written in 6544. One of the languages used in the inscription has been proved to be ancient Persian, which is another known writing form. /kloc-At the beginning of the 9th century, researchers began to translate cuneiform characters of ancient Persians.
At the same time, European forces decided to establish closer trade and diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire. 1802, Britain formally established a representative named consul in Mesopotamia. Six years later, this position was taken over by 22-year-old scholar and diplomat Claudia Zhan Mu Leach. He is also interested in ancient history and ancient ruins. During his time as consul, the British residence in Baghdad became the center of archaeological activities.
Leach drew sketches of Babylonian ruins, collected wedge-shaped pottery pieces and published academic papers on Babylonian studies. However, Leach's interest is not limited to Babylon. He also dreams of finding the lost city of Nineveh. At 1820, he inspected two mounds on both sides of the Tigris River, north of Baghdad and outside Mosuo City. On the top of a mound called Ku Jantyik, he found some broken pottery and some pottery bricks engraved with cuneiform characters. However, Leach died of cholera before digging the mound. He was unfortunately infected with the disease while taking care of a cholera patient in Persia.
Leach's widow sold all his cuneiform pottery plates to the British Museum in London, and scholars all over the world soon began to study some of them.
However, the breakthrough decoding of cuneiform did not happen in a quiet museum, but in a rock canyon in Persia. Its discoverer is Henry Rawlinson, a scholar who transformed from a soldier and athlete to an archaeologist. His interest in cuneiform began in 1835, when he went to the Persian town of Biris Tun perform his duties as a soldier. There, he heard that there were stone carvings nearby, and out of curiosity, he went to have a look. This expression surprised him. Facing the huge cliff stone carving 340 feet high, rawlinson was dumbfounded. Stone carvings describe the story of Darius, the ancient Persian king, preparing to punish the rebellious prince. The story is described in three cuneiform characters around and below the figure, about 1200 lines. Realizing that these stone carvings may be the key to the interpretation of cuneiform characters, rawlinson risked his life to climb the cliff with a narrow wall frame and a crooked ladder to copy the stone carvings. The hardest part had to pay a Kurdish boy to hang him on a cliff with a rope to copy.
When he finished copying the full text of the stone carving, he was promoted to British consul in Baghdad, where he began to study the secrets of cuneiform. In order to alleviate the heat in the desert, he created an artificial waterfall. Under the cool waterfall, his little pet lion is at his feet, and he is concentrating on studying three cuneiform characters. Soon, he successfully translated ancient Persian; But I'm confused about the other two languages. However, in just a few years, he succeeded in breaking through another unknown writing. This is Babylonian, which originated from a civilized language in Mesopotamia thousands of years ago.
Not only Babylonians, but also Assyrians.
185 1 year, Romania published some translations of Babylonian characters in Biris Tun stone carvings, which greatly promoted the development of Mesopotamian archaeology. At this time, there are still a lot of Babylonian inscriptions to be translated. However, the third language still puzzles cuneiform scholars. Scholars finally think that it is a language originated from ancient Persians and call it Elamite. At the same time, French scholar Jules oberth declared in 1869 that cuneiform originated in Sumerian region in southern Mesopotamia, and was later inherited and used by ethnic groups including Erasmus and Babylonians. Contemporary scholars believe that Aubert's inference is correct. Sumerian is the oldest known written language and the basis of cuneiform, which was later used by various ethnic groups with different cultural backgrounds in the Middle East.
The secret of Mesopotamia is being revealed. While rawlinson was studying stone carvings and trying to decipher Babylonian characters, others were digging mounds and hillsides. One of them is an explorer named Paul Imeyer Berta, who is the French consul in Moscow. Berta began to dig the ancient Yangjike, hoping to find the remains of Nineveh, but after several weeks of work, only a few bricks were found. So I lost interest. Later, he heard that there was a place called Kaho Chabad a few kilometers north, where a large number of carved bricks could be found. He sent several workers to the scene to learn about the situation, and the information he brought back was exciting, saying that he saw huge people and monsters carved on the wall.
Berta hurried to check for herself and saw that the workers who had gone first had dug up the wall carvings, some of which were bull statues, some were portraits with beards, and some were winged sphinxes. The jubilant Berta announced to the world that he had discovered Nineveh. France * * * ordered him to try to dig up the relics and send them back to France. However, it is extremely difficult to handle the work and it is almost impossible to implement it.
Unlike the stone ruins in Greece, Rome and Egypt, the ancient cities of Mesopotamia were all built with dry mud bricks, and only sculptures, important facades and wallboard for celebration or decoration were made of stone. After many years, Mesopotamian city bricks are fragile and easy to collapse, which makes it very difficult for archaeologists to find special architectural contours. The excavation site looks like a huge pile of ants, not a city buried in the soil. Piles of mud and piles of broken bricks, diggers are digging tunnels, looking for pottery relics, sculptures and treasures.
Berta excavated many large sculptures in Schabad, Kaho: winged guards of the bull's head palace, plaster portraits of kings and gods 65,438+05 feet high, and others. Berta and the sweaty workers went through all kinds of hardships and finally put these trophies on the raft on the Tigris River. These antiquities will drift with rafts to the Persian Gulf, where they will be loaded and transported to France through stormy waters near the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. Although some sculptures were damaged and lost in the Tigris River or the sea during transportation, a large number of antiquities arrived in France safely, causing a sensation. These antiquities not only created a new Assyrianism, but also created a new fashion called Assyrian Renaissance. During this renaissance, popular furniture, decorations, jewelry and women's clothing all had the pattern style of ancient Assyrian palaces.
Unwilling to let the French take the crown of Assyria, Britain sent an agent to Mesopotamia. His name is Austin Henry Layard, and he trained as a lawyer in London. Layard is an adventurous young man who has traveled to many places in the Middle East and now works for the British Consulate in Constantinople. A biography mentions that his job is a "diversified unofficial diplomatic envoy"-a mission between political activities and espionage. 1845, the consulate sent Layard to Mosuo to announce the establishment of Assyrian English glory.
Layard deliberately swayed in front of suspicious French and local chiefs, pretending to be a hunter; Privately, he smuggled tools into the mound near Mosuo and began to dig. Before nightfall, his workers discovered two Assyrian palaces. Soon, he dug up ivory carvings. Cuneiform tablets and sculpture drawing boards record battle scenes. "I live in ruins," he wrote to an aunt. "I can't even dream about anything else."
Layard was convinced that it was he, not Berta, who discovered the real ruins of Nineveh. Layard, like Berta, did not make a scientific investigation of ancient ruins, but was bent on finding something that caught the eye and transporting it home. Soon, a large number of flying lions, flying cows and other treasures began to embark on a dangerous journey and drifted downstream. Just a huge male elephant needs a raft made of 600 sheepskins to carry and a team of armed anti-theft bandits to defend it. Layard's discovery was transshipped at the Tigris estuary in the Persian Gulf, sent to London, and reappeared in the solemn London Museum.
1847, Layard began to excavate Guyangjike. Before Kaho Chabad was discovered, Berta had tested it, but gave up. Layard found that Berta found the right address, but he didn't dig deep enough. In fact, there are many cultural relics 20 feet below the Ku Jantyik soil. As Henry Rawlinson quickly proved in the process of translating cuneiform, Kuyangjik is really Nineveh that people have been looking for for for a long time. The first place that Layard discovered was a city called Nimrud. Nimrud, similar to Cachao Shabad discovered by Bertha, was once the capital of the Assyrian Empire in history. However, Nineveh is the legendary leader of the most powerful king in Assyria. It is the capital where the prophet Jonah preached in the Bible.
After several years of excavation, Layard has made amazing achievements in Nineveh. He excavated a part of King sinatra's palace, and King sinatra ruled Assyria from 704 BC to 68 BC1year. There are 7 1 rooms in the palace, one of which is a library built later, which is the masterpiece of sinatra Chilifu's grandson Asbanip. This library covers all countries in ancient Assyria-from language, history, literature, religion to medicine. There are at least 27 entrances to the palace, and each entrance is guarded by a huge cow, lion or sphinx. Perhaps the most memorable is the stone mural that records the history and myth of Assyria. Layard estimated that if these paintings were arranged one after another, it would be almost two miles long.
As the funds provided by the British Museum were extremely stingy, the angry Layard left the excavation site on 185 1 and returned to Britain. In Mesopotamia, archaeological teams from * * *, Iraq, France, Germany, Britain and the United States are still carrying out sporadic excavations, and some excavators attach great importance to the value of scientific investigation; Others are just upstarts who rob tombs. It was not until the 20th century that people really began to make scientific investigations on Nineveh, Nimrud and other ancient Mesopotamian cities. However, it was in the 20th century that people made amazing discoveries in this land where the Bible and history seem to be intertwined.
65438+2009 In the early 1950s, researchers at the British Museum spent many years classifying and translating more than 24,000 cuneiform tablets discovered by Layard in Nineveh. One of the most successful translators is george smith, an enthusiastic Assyrian scholar. One day, while examining a pile of broken stone tablets, he found something incredible. The inscription records the scene of God's rain and flood in Babylon to punish evil and sinful human beings. In that catastrophe, a man named Utena Bilim, together with his family and many animals, built a wooden boat and survived the flood. Smith realized that the story recorded in the inscription was very similar to the story of the flood and Noah's ark described in Genesis.
Smith's discovery caused a sensation. Some people claim that the inscription proves that the story of Noah's ark is true; Others believe that the inscription shows that the biblical story is based on an older myth. However, the stone tablet about the flood story has been damaged, so Smith can't provide the full text of The Story of Babylon.
Therefore, a London newspaper named Daily Mail sent Smith to Nineveh to retrieve the broken inscription. A miraculous coincidence happened in history, and Smith accidentally came across the rest of the lost inscriptions in less than a week. However, the newly restored inscription did not add anything about the flood. Smith, who hoped to continue digging, died of dysentery in Syria two years later.
We have learned a lot about ancient Mesopotamia since the era of Berta and Layard. Even in addition to exploring Mesopotamian cities and translating cuneiform documents, we added many details about Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians.
After ancient Sumer, there were two powerful civilizations, namely Babylonian civilization and Assyrian civilization. Around 2000 BC, both civilizations originated in Mesopotamia; Babylon is in the south and Assyria is in the north. Babylon was powerful for centuries, but around 1600 BC, both countries were ruled by an invading country outside Mesopotamia. In14th century BC, Assyria took control of Babylonian ethics after the invaders were expelled. In BC12nd century, Assyria flourished under the strong rule of King Grabasle. However, after the death of Gra Pelce, the country declined for a time. From 883 to 627 BC, under the rule of King sinatra and King Assyria, Assyria regained its former glory and glory.
It was sinatra Chilifu who made Nineveh the capital of the Assyrian Empire: the city was built on a mountain, with more than 7.5 miles of walls, and at least five places were isolated from the outside world because of the construction of gates; There may be more doors, but they haven't been excavated yet. On the top of the hill is the palace of King sinatra Clifford, covering an area of 2 acres. In order to build this monument to his glory, he invited a large number of skilled craftsmen from Turkey, Persia and Babylon. These people also brought rare materials such as fragrant wood, ivory, gold, silver and white limestone. Surrounded by gardens, the palace is rich in water plants; The indoor facilities in the temple are very comfortable. A set of exquisite water supply facilities consisting of wells, pulleys and buckets will send water to the king's bathroom; There is a shower in the bathroom, lattice windows and ventilation devices constantly send fresh air into the room, and a mobile stove with wheels provides heat for the room when it is cold. Asbanip, the grandson of Sinnachelev, founded an unforgettable palace library and collected books from all over the world known to Assyrians at that time. Asbanip once ordered a minister in Babylon to say, "As long as you know the rare stone tablets that Assyria doesn't have, find them for me."
In 627 BC, after the death of Assyria, Assyria declined again. Soon, invaders from Persia and Babylon occupied Nineveh. In 605 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon defeated the remnants of Assyria, and since then, the king of Assyria has disappeared into the ruins of history. The subjects of the Hebrew prophet Zephyr were oppressed by Assyrians. Seeing the collapse of Nineveh, the French people happily commented: "Look at the punishment suffered by this victorious city! She is so arrogant that she thinks that' no one is better than me'; Now it has become a gathering place for deserts and wildlife. No matter who passes by, they will sneer and disdain. " However, with the efforts of several generations of explorers, archaeologists and scholars, Nineveh's lost glory is once again shown to the world today.